Against the Night
by OceanLord
Summary: (One Shot)A short little piece with about an anonymous Gundam pilot's thoughts on the war.


Against the Night  
  
  
To lose is to die; as to win is to live. Such is the way of things.  
  
The morning had been a fresh crisp start. Heralding the dawn of a new day. Exercises, a shower, followed by breakfast, and then daily chores were the order of the day. Exactly the same way I had started every morning for the past 2 years. It was a pattern that I had always followed.  
  
Around about midmorning, a monstrous explosion rocked the base. Furniture was overturned, people were knocked to the floor, and the absolute soul-piercing cry deafened us all. The hallway was lit with the blood red light and the high glass shattering screech that gave word that the base was under attack. My pattern was broken; hence my day started anew once again, as a new pattern was formulated in my mind. I ran down the corridor as its pulsating red light gave me strength. I ran, faster than what was deemed humanly possible. Down the intestine-like tunnels that made the interior of the base. Finally, I had reached my destination. The door opened to reveal the rectangle shaped metallic inside of the hanger bay. Monstrous yellow cranes loaded various types of Gundams onto the launch ramps.  
  
There were many people, just like me, inside that hangar bay. Young men and women in the prime of life, I might as well have been looking at a mirror, for what I saw in their faces was what I felt...afraid. We were heading into battle to defend what we believed in against our enemy. Tragically, some of us would never come back home. That was a fact that would always be true with war. I stepped into the crowded locker room that was next to the hangar bay. My personal locker stood amongst the many others like it. I used my code to unlock and open it quickly. Having had immense amounts of practice in the past, I extracted my flight suit and pulled it onto my sweating body, swiftly and effortlessly. I bolted out of that locker room so fast that I hadn't even shut my cubicle properly, none of us had.  
  
I marched to my own special Gundam. It's smooth, sleek, and shiny hull sent light reflecting around the room. The hollow cylinders, in the head, that were the forward guns, sent a surge of excitement through me as I gazed upon their polished surface. The Beam saber sword, my favorite weapon of use. A knight's choice weapon of honor. I lowered my gaze to the ramp, which led to the cockpit, it was like a stairway to heaven. The cockpit was where I belonged; it was where my skills, ambitions, and hopes came together. It was me, an extension of my own body, where I was God and nobody could vanquish me. I seated myself on the pilot seat, my throne. Then closed the hatch over myself, my castle. I took the control stick in my hands, my hands that commanded the Gundam. My hands, that could deal out death to my enemies by the pulling of a single trigger.   
  
The hangar bay doors opened before me, like the gates to oblivion. Beyond the sanctity of the doors, lay the black void of space. Where there was no safety out there. Where life did not, nor could not, exist in such a hostile frontier. The launchers charged up and soon I was being forced back into my seat by the high level of Gs, as I was launched into the vacuum. There were four of us that were launched. About a minute later four more would launch.  
  
There they were, waiting for us, the enemy. They outnumbered use nearly 7 to 1, but while they had strength in numbers, we had the advantage of high technology. Soon, all too soon, we had engaged in brutal combat. Like some kind of perverse dance, we flew around each other as the intense light of our energy weapons lit up the blackness of space, like a fireworks display. Plasma bursts and laser artillery blasts were everywhere one could see with their own eyes. Friends and foes alike were dying left and right and as their screams of pain and death came over the radio, in hideous amounts, the feeling of God hood, in fact the feeling of being invincible was destroyed like a popped balloon. Thus, after the balloon was destroyed, all you were left with were the shreds of your confidence and bravery.  
  
Thereafter, all that emerged was yet another pattern in my mind...survival. All of my training, experience, and preparations had led up to this moment, survival against my enemies, to defend my home against death, to hold the line against the night, to lose was to die, as to win is to live, how true those words rang now.   
  
I tightened my hold on the control stick and took a deep, calming breath, as I returned to the fray of space warfare. I fought with a hunger for victory, to annihilate all those who would do me harm, and to prove to myself that I could handle the responsibility that was given to me when I had stepped into the cockpit of my Gundam. The fighting raged on yet more, it seemed as if time itself was slowing. An unknown amount of time had passed since the violence started, yet somewhere along the line the enemy decided that they had had enough, as they retreated back to where ever they had come from. A quick radar scan showed that we now outnumbered them 3 to 1 and as they left, there was a silence, so nerve wracking, it could drive a man insane within moments.  
  
I let out a breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. A flood of congratulations came over the COM system, people were cheering our victory and offering thanks and prayers. At the same time maintenance bots emerged from the base hangar. Their purpose was to repair any damage to the base. There were also several search and rescue craft that headed out to collect any ejected pilots that were floating around.  
  
We have won this battle, but it is certain that there will be more battles, sometime, in the future.  



End file.
